According to Webster’s Dictionary:  Genocide - The systematic killing of, or a program 
of action intended to destroy a whole national or ethnic group.


Massacre - To kill indiscriminately or in great numbers.


Holocaust - The wholesale destruction of a people, especially by fire.


In 1915, the Ottoman Turks started committing genocide by massacring one million 
five-hundred thousand Armenians.


During WWII, Hitler’s Nazi Germany was in the process of massacring six million Jews 
and committed a holocaust on their victims by trying desperately to get rid of their 
victims dead bodies in huge crematory ovens.  This barbarism was coined "Holocaust" 
because of their failed attempt to get rid of the massacred bodies by fire.


Yugoslavia’s President, Slobodan Milosevic, is presently committing ethnic cleansing on 
his Yugoslav Albanian subjects.  As to the number of victims that are being massacred in 
the process, the final tally isn’t in yet.


In reality, regardless of what we wind up calling it, what the Ottoman Turks did to our 
Armenians in 1915, what Hitler’s Nazis did to the European Jews during WWII, and what 
Milosevic is currently doing to Yugoslavia’s Albanians, all comes under the heading of, 
"Genocide."


The aftermaths of genocides are all the same.  They result in tragic losses of innocent 
lives, horrible manifestations of indescribable suffering and torture, coupled with 
unending sorrow and unforgiving despair.  Moreover, the desolation of innocent souls 
and blood, leaves the future contaminated with a highly communicable disease called 
"hate" which in turn, given the right impetus, turns into an even higher communicable 
disease called, "vengeance."


But, on the other hand, judging by the players who practiced these barbaric rituals during 
this century, atrocities can be committed by any and all nations that are ruled by despots, 
regardless of race or religion.


Genocides, of course, do not characterize all types of mass annihilations.  Take, for 
instance, the scourge that Premier Josef Stalin inflicted on his own---the people of Mother 
Russia.  By the time this godless bastard died of natural causes, he had massacred an 
estimated 25-30 million of his own people.


Today we find ourselves on the threshold of a new millennium.  But unlike the 
millenniums of the past, we are not fighting wars with sling shots, spears, or bows and 
arrows anymore.  Our new bag of toys includes nuclear bombs, germ warfare, and poison 
gases, the likes of which even Satan’s conscience would have misgivings about using.  
And to add to the prospects of a volatile future, modern technology is providing us with 
not only the delivery systems but also with the pinpoint accuracy of satellite guidance 
systems.  Technology, in fact, is so advanced in destruction that it goes far beyond our 
evolved level of human understanding, and even further beyond that of a despot’s level of 
understanding.


Question: Will our world stop playing their hate cards and find the courage to say no 
toward settling old scores?  Or will our world wind up in the twenty-first century, 
destroying the most hazardous of all pollutants---mankind?


Joseph Vosbikian